


>Karkat, be haunted

by goopie



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society (Homestuck), Character Turned Into a Ghost, Does that make sense?, Haunting, I just made that up, M/M, Moving, POV Karkat Vantas, Plot, Possession, SO, Slice of Life, Spirits, Swearing, Trolls on Earth (Homestuck), also dave is the ghost, also the title is awful im so sorry, and when i say "karkat's lusus" i mean signless mixed w/ the lusus, anyway kk has a troll dad, bc like grub cant be produced on earth or something, because i am british, because teenagers swear, every beta troll also appears, hes not dead but like not alive, his name is Kolani, i research bugs but not america, i suck, im just not tagging everyone, karkat and kankri are brothers, karkat moved from ohio to texas, like karkat gets possessed during a maths test, oh yeah trolls eat bugs instead of grub, probably, set in america but with british slang, some alpha trolls appear too, those are like the only states i know off the top of my head, while writing i just realised this might be a slice of life, with plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:08:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27673139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goopie/pseuds/goopie
Summary: In which the protagonist finds himself haunted by a not-so-dead love interest.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	1. If only to be a book protagonist

**Author's Note:**

> look man im awful at titles i do apologise

Your head lies on your bare mattress as you scowl at your ceiling. You know if someone were to walk in right now, they’d think you are incredibly angry (or annoyed) at something or another. Probably assume something deep rooted within you has been haunting your mind since you were a wriggler. While that sounds like it could be some epic, edgy back-story for some dramatic book protagonist (and if you were being honest with yourself, you’d love to read that) you, in fact, just have resting bitch face. But thinking of your own RBF only leads you to think about all the people who constantly tell you to “lighten up” (your smarmy brother included), and therefore leads to your scowl deepening. It’s a never ending cycle you go through at least twice a day. Speaking of which:

“Karkat, what _are_ you doing?” Kankri said to you, leaning against your doorframe. Your sigh of pure ire left him unfazed. He’d grown up with you for 17 years; he was used to your bullshit.

“I’m prancing around my room with joy like I just watched you jump off a three story building.” You responded, rolling over to your side to throw an empty glare his way.

“We both know you’d be sobbing over my body if that was the case, brother. You can’t fool me.”

“Fine then – I am now mourning your grave in the pouring rain while Dad pats my back with grief. Does that sound better to you or are you going to keep complaining about my hypotheticals?”

“As much as I would love to continue to protest your overly-exaggerated theoretical scenarios, I must call you down for dinner.”

“Oh, yeah,” You swung your legs over to the dark carpet and stretched your arms. “What’s on the table for today?”

“The usual.”

Indeed, as you stepped into the kitchen, the usual was indeed on the table. The “usual” being bugs. You had heard that trolls once ate “grub” (you personally hadn’t seen it before, production of the stuff had stopped way back when trolls lived on Alternia) but your diet has been exclusive to things like crickets and caterpillars. You recall when one of your human peers genuinely threw up at lunch because you ate a cricket. They had obviously overreacted, but you felt bad anyway. You started eating lunch alone from then on out of guilt.

But, then again, that was in the last school. You have no idea how many trolls with be in the new one, but you sure as hell hope the ratio is more even than it was last time.

You sit down at the dining table, which in reality is just a glorified breakfast bar mixed with a kitchen island, and curse at the boxes you almost dragged your chair into.

“Language, Karkat.” Kankri says, pulling out three plates.

“I don’t see why you bother Kankri; he’s never going to stop.” Your Dad teases. You would be mad if it was anyone else, but it’s your Dad. How could you ever be mad at him? Still, to keep up your nonexistent reputation, you grumble something along the lines of “please shut up”. If anyone had asked, you would’ve grumbled even more about how you’d “never say please to scum like them”. Then again, that only leaves you open to an epic response of “but you just did”, so you’ll have to work on that one.

You watched your Dad scoop out the crickets (yum) from the silver pot with a slotted spoon onto the plates. Your Dad sat to your right, on the end of the table, and Kankri sat to your left as he handed you your plate, now full of bugs and spring onions. For all the slack humans give them, most types taste great. Then again, if a human were to ever eat a few Blister Beetles, they’d die a long and painful death. So, in some respects, you get the caution.

You should probably pay attention to what your Dad and your brother are saying, but you’re busy thinking about other things. Such as how you’re struggling to get a bug on your spoon, how you’ve lived in this house for a week and Kankri is the only one who wasn’t too lazy to unpack his own boxes, and how you start a new school tomorrow. Oh yeah, you’re starting a new school tomorrow, aren’t you? You wish you had prepared yourself more, but your past self once again failed you in that area. No matter how many times you’ve insisted that you are an amazing planner, everyone knows (including you) that you don’t really think ahead.

“Karkat? What do you think?” Your dad finally called to you as you finally got that annoying piece of shit bug in your mouth.

“I wasn’t paying attention, sorry,” You swallow, “What was that?”

“Don’t speak with your mouth full, Karkat. That’s disgusting,” Kankri furrowed his eyebrows at you as you proceeded to purposefully shove a spoonful of food into your mouth in preparation to speak with a mouth full of food out of spite.

“I was talking about school, Karkat,” your Dad huffed in fake annoyance. “Are you excited?”

“Dad, this is going to be my first year in a completely new school in _Sixth Form._ What do you think?” you manage through your full mouth. You at least had the decency to cover it with your fist.

Your Dad chuckled at that: “I suppose not, huh?”

You manage to finish your dinner with only one more little sibling squabble, which happened near the end (It was an argument on who should load the dishwasher. You lost.) And you are now back in your bedroom, picking up your pillows and duvet from the floor. Remember when you commented to yourself how your bed was bare? Yeah, that was because you had a shitfit about something or another. Some people may say that you were mourning about your previous life in Houston, but that was not the case: you hated it there, now that you think about that. You probably just hit your horns on the head rest while throwing your head back in frustration. You tend to do that a lot, now that you’re thinking about it.

Once you’ve finished the bothering task of throwing your bed sheets back onto your bed, you shimmy out of your jeans and throw yourself into bed, narrowly missing the wall. You dread to think about what tomorrow has in store for you. Maybe waking up at the ass crack of dawn won’t be too bad?


	2. First days of school are overrated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry i have no idea how to code it all looks too complicated

It was bad, as it always is. Every night you try and convince yourself getting up from your cosy bed won’t be as bad as you thought it was that morning, but the fact it’s like, what? Six in the morning, makes it worse. Oh, not to mention your brother’s obnoxious voice was the thing that woke you up. Ugh. Sometimes you wonder why you haven’t invested in an alarm yet, but then remember even hearing the distant tone of Kankri’s phone in the morning fills you with an astounding rage. To be fair, a lot of things annoy you like that. One of them is human “Rainbow Sprinkles”. You’ve never been sure why but seeing them makes you want to yell. You’re not sure if you’ve ever felt so much hatred for anything, honestly. Even thinking about them now is getting you riled up: you genuinely cannot stand the thought of them. Once, in Food Tech, you had to make human Truffles and you cried in frustration because you had to use sprinkles. In your defence, you were only in year 7 and it had been a stressful week. (Not that you really had anything to be stressed about.)  
But thinking about that just got you in a sour mood. Christ, you were trembling with rage for crying out loud. But who could blame you, man! They are honestly just infuriating to no extent.  
Before you actually start crying, you sit up in your bed, rubbing your face with one hand while reaching for your phone with the other. You lift up your cracked phone (how the hell it managed to get so messed up with that inch-thick case you don’t know) and check the time. 7:15? Not too bad. You have 30 minutes to get ready till you have to leave the house for a ride to school and you very much know you’re going to spend a majority of that time doing nothing in bed. Well, for as long as you can get away with anyway. You know Kankri will not hesitate to attack your door like a feral animal as an attempt at a knock to get you up.  
Speaking of phone screens, you didn’t just notice the time. You also saw that you indeed have a few messages from some of your internet friends from like, Europe or whatever. Geography really wasn’t your strong point.

-gallowsCalibrator [GC] Began Trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]-

GC: H3Y  
GC: H333333Y K4K4T  
GC: COM3 ON 1 KNOW FOR A F4CT TH4T IT’S NOT 3V3N MIDNIGHT OV3R TH3R3  
GC: LM4O WAIT YOUV3 GOT SCHOOL, RIGHT?  
GC: LOOS3R!!  
GC: ANYW4Y I JUST R34LIS3D  
GC: SOM3 OF OUR FRI3NDS LIV3 IN T3XAS!!!  
GC: 1 B3T YOU W1SH 1 WAS TH3R3

CG: GET OFF YOUR HIGHHORSE, TEREZI.  
CG: I’M ACTUALLY INCREDIBLY GLAD YOU AREN’T HERE. I KNOW FOR A FACT YOU’D FREAK EVERYBODY OUT, AND BY ASSOCIATION, I’D BE HORRIFICALLY BULLIED.  
CG: AND I WOULDN’T BE MAD ABOUT IT, HONESTLY. I’D BULLY ME TOO.

GC: YOU’R3 SUCH A F1LTHY L14R, K4RK4T!  
GC: TH3 L4ST TIM3 SOM3ON3 TRI3D 4NYTH1NG D1DN’T YOU L1K3, SOCK H1M 1N TH3 J4W?

CG: I’D RATHER WE NOT GO INTO MY EXESSIVE HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, TEREZI.  
CG: IF YOU’D BE SO KIND TO SPARE ME THE MISERY THAT IS YOUR TEASING.

GC: F1N3! BUT ONLY B3C4US3 1 F33L SORRY FOR YOU

CG: I ALWAYS KNEW YOU HAD IT IN YOU TO BE KIND.  
CG: THANKS, THOUGH.  
CG: I’LL TALK TO YOU LATER, YEAH?

GC: S33 YOU!

-gallowsCalibrator [GC] Ceased Trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]-

God. Having friends is hard. Thankfully, the two of you have sorted out this mood where none of you really mean anything. You wish you could say the same about the rest of the people you’re close with: one wrong word with Vriska would certainly end with you in the hospital within three to five working days. You recall back to the time Vriska got Tavros in the hospital. It wasn’t pretty, but at least she paid his hospital bills as an apology. But now that you’re thinking about it, that really is the bare minimum.  
“Karkat, come on. I don’t fancy walking into your pigsty today to drag you to school in your underwear.” Karkat heard Kankri’s muffled voice from just behind the door. You took offence from that, because yes there are boxes everywhere, but each box is stacked neatly to form a solid wall of boxes that unintentionally hides your window. No matter how much you insist it was an accident, your family is still relentless on how you “love to live like a bridge troll”.  
“God, it’s not even that bad,” you say while simultaneously shoving on a pair of straight jeans. They were your absolute favourite that you owned; a hand-me-down from your dad. At one point he had joked that if you wore them any longer they’d become your second skin. You took this in stride and wore them for a week straight. Nobody was happy about that.  
You picked up the same loose turtleneck you wore the day before and pulled it over your head. You suppose the one positive of having “nubby” horns was that they never got tangled in anything. Otherwise, you absolutely hated everything about them, and you pray to a God you don’t even believe in that they’ll grow during your moult. This, at this point, didn’t seem too far away.  
“Karkat, come on!” Kankri yelled from downstairs. You grab your phone from where you placed it on your barren bedside table. Rushing downstairs, you almost trip and fall flat on your face. Luckily, you managed to leave the scene with a bruised wrist and a damaged ego. “Send me a postcard next time.”  
“Screw off, Kankri. No-one asked you.” You were so low on insults for this guy it was embarrassing. You look up at your brother, scowling.  
You would usually now spend ten minutes shoving your feet into a pair of (steel toed, might you add) combat boots, but you really don’t have the time. So instead of delicately making sure the backs don’t break, like you should do, you put your feet in the neck and decide to put them on properly in the car. Kankri just gives you a disappointed look as you both walk (waddle) out the door.  
“Aren’t you going to eat breakfast?”  
“Well, are you going to wait for me?”  
“Touché.” You stepped into the passenger seat as your brother simultaneously slipped into the driver’s seat beside you. “If you want, there should be a granola bar in the glove compartment.”  
“Why the fuck would i want a granola bar?” You say, opening the compartment and looking for it anyway.  
“What’s wrong with a granola bar?”  
“Because it’s a granola bar! It tastes like ash and coal.” You are now eating the granola bar. Kankri just sighs in defeat. Hah - one point to you. You love being able to say you’ve beaten a SJW in several fights. It gives you a good reputation. (You think.)

You finally arrive at the school (also known as Dersite High school) and are graciously lead in by your brother. You say that as if he’s know the place for years, when in reality he’s just posing because your Dad was busy with his new job. Yes, you moved because of your Dad’s work. How stereotypical is that?  
You step through the door and walk up to the reception’s desk. As you knock on the glass and wait for her to roll over in her chair, you glance up at the time. Ten to eight: school began in ten minutes. Were you ready for this? Probably not. You just pray nobody here is an active xenophobe.  
“Hello darlin’, what can I do for you two?” The plump troll receptionist said in an incredibly strong Texan accent.  
“Hello, I hope you do not mind us arriving at such a short notice. Karkat here refused to get out of his bed.” You flush and elbow his side. That asshole.  
“Oh, Karkat Vantas I presume! Well, welcome to our school Hon!” She smiled and you couldn’t help but give a shy smile back. “Here, I’ll get you hooked up with your timetable, wait here.”  
She clicked around on her computer, and rolled over to the printer as it started to whir.  
“Here you go, Hon.” She proceeded to explain what was on the timetable, but first you’d need to see the head of year to take a few tests to see what group level you should go in. You did ask yourself why they didn’t just use your old end of year tests from last year, and you’re certain that if this was a book this would only be for the sake of plot relevancy, but you don’t mind too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ghost dave will b introduced next chapter


	3. Empty chairs give really weird vibes nowadays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i just. really like this chapter title lmao

Okay, never mind, you mind a lot. Standardised testing always sucks; you don’t know why you pretend to enjoy it. It doesn’t help that this was the last test you had to do, so you were exhausted, but it was an arithmetic maths test. No calculators, just you and your fried up brain. Not fun.

You really don’t know how to do this. You’re on like, what, question five? Oh god, you’ve only got 20 minutes left and there are 40 damned questions on this stupid goddamned test.

  
  


"Let me." you hear a voice whisper. Your mind strikes with alarm: who the hell was that? The seat next to you is empty and the whole classroom is relatively silent, minus the teacher occasionally clicking about on her laptop. You glance at your teacher and- 

  
  


"Oh my god." You murmur to yourself as you feel your left hand dropping in temperature. The sensation was something akin to someone with ice cold skin grabbing onto you. You’re more weirded out by anything, and you watch in morbid curiosity and your hand moves on its own, clenching once or twice as if a newborn wriggler. Your other hand unwillingly goes to join in too, what are they doing anyway? Shaking? Oh, now they’re picking up your paper. Great. You go to interfere, but are stopped by the fact that you can’t move - willingly, anyway.

“Karkat? You alright there?" the (human) head of year says to you, and you can defiantly hear a sneer in her tone.

“‘m fine, miss." a voice that you recognise says. Oh- it’s yours. At this point you’re genuinely starting to panic. You can't control your body, and you really needed to do this test and not look like a dunce in the process.

 _Dude, you’re so stressed. Chill out,_ You think. No you don’t - what the hell? That was not your own thought. You might actually pass out if this goes on for much longer.

-

Whoa, speak of the devil. You don’t remember passing out (obviously) but it’s clear you did when you suddenly jolt at the sound of the bell. Oh god, you’re screwed. You’ve done like, what, less than 10% of this stupid test? You pause then, right before handing your test in to the teacher. A barely passable excuse for your own hand writing is scrawled across the last questions. What on earth. You flip through the test. So, you passed out and did everything? Even the stuff you still don’t understand? Aha. This was normal. Totally normal.

This is not normal, you think to yourself as you plunder down the busy hallway. People gathered in groups, seeming to be in no rush. Was it lunch? It was probably lunch, but then again you still had no idea and the was no way you were going to drag out your temporary timetable in the middle of some random hallway and probably embarrass yourself by knocking into someone and sprawling the floor. (You yearn for the day you can proudly say you knocked someone to the floor with sheer unintended force.)

Actually, you might’ve just done that. You stop walking and look behind you and yep, there’s a girl you just. Mowed over, just like that, sprawled on the floor. This... you feel really bad, this is not the joy you were expecting. Actually, you feel pretty mortified right now. How ignorant can you be? You just walked into someone and continued a good few feet down the corridor. You can think about the stupid test later, right now you need to apologise.

“Oh my _God,_ ” You hurriedly approach the girl on the floor. “I am so, so sorry. I promise that wasn’t intentional.”

Her green irises glanced at you as you watched her still body. Was she okay? You haven’t paralyzed her or anything, have you? Just as a pit begins to open in your stomach, she starts _laughing._ Like, full on witch-cackle laughing.

This goes on for a long moment, and people begin to stare at her. Luckily, they don’t really notice you, since you’re not the one on the floor laughing.

She stands up, and absolutely towers over you by about a foot. Her tan skin matches her near black hair, and wide, round and silver glasses frame her face. “God, that was funny. You’re so short, too!”

“That has absolutely jack shit to do with anything!” You frown. Yeah, you had just knocked her over, but you don’t take lightly to jabs about things you can’t immediately change. Well, you don’t take to any kind of jab but that’s beside the point. The girl starts giggling at you again, and grabs your wrist to drag you down the hallway in the direction you were just originally going. With this entire ruckus, you nearly forgot about... whatever the hell happened about ten minutes ago. Almost.

“Oh man, I gotta show you to John. He’s gonna love you!”

“Why do I get the feeling that’s a bad thing?”

That was, indeed, a bad thing. The first thing John commented on was your status as a troll: “Whoa, didn’t realise Jade would end up bringing a troll home! What’s up with this?” Insensitive asshole.

“Hah, shut up John. This guy is funny! Aren’t you... Wait, what’s your name?” You inwardly cringe at Jade.

“I’m Karkat.”

“Ooooh, exotic!” Will John just shut up?

“That’s offensive, John. Don’t call Trolls exotic,” A Blonde pipes up from across the round table. You like her already. “Apologies, Karkat, excuse him. I’m Rose.”

You give her a curt nod before glancing at the empty chairs.

“C’mon dude, sit down with us! Don’t be a stranger.” John looks at you, unaffected by Rose’s remark. There’re two empty seats: one between John and Rose, and the other beside Jade. You almost move to the former, but you stop before you can even shuffle slightly. _Don’t sit there._ You furrow your eyes at the stool. A feeling of unwelcome washes over you. You think back to the test.

You end up sitting next to Jade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does this count as meeting dave??? well we'll see him properly next chapter (that's what i said last time oops)


	4. Okay, I'm not a rust blood, but this is kinda sus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tempted to base dave on lemon demon's entire discography

Lunch was fairly uneventful, and John only spared you a few more ignorant remarks before he gave up on talking to you altogether. In the end, nobody did sit in the spare seat, and the feeling you originally felt damped down slightly after you sat down. For the rest of lunch, you pointedly avoided looking at the dumb chair. You stayed relatively quiet throughout, and left about ten minutes before the fifth period bell to get your actual timetable.

Your first lesson was Skills for Life. What the hell is Skills for life? That sounds so unbelievably stupid, because you know for a fact you don’t learn shit until university. Why is it called skills for life when you’ve written more fake job applications in Cooking than you ever will in that stupid class?

You spare no more time pondering on the stupid subject (honestly, it’s so mind-numbingly dumb you’re surprised you even thought about it for more than a second) and walk up to the room the class is in. It’s down the Humanities corridor, two doors on the right.

You’re a few minutes early, and you politely knock on the door. Looking through the window, you wait for the teacher to beckon you in. She’s a post-moult troll, most likely a jade blood based on the accents of green you can see on her clothes. You walk in on her cue, and she’s first to introduce herself.

“Hello, Karkat. I hope the beginning tests weren’t too difficult for you,” She sighs, “They seem to be getting harder and harder these days.”

“Yeah, I guess you could say struggled a little,” A little, you say. Understatement of the fucking year. “But they, uh, weren’t too bad I suppose.”

The teacher walked towards the cupboards and slid open the door to reach in and grabb a yellow book, around half the size of what you were expecting. Her voice was elegant as she handed you it. “That’s good. Here’s your book, write your name on it for me, yeah?”

“Sure,” You go to sit down, before realising you haven’t been assigned a seat yet. “So uh, where do I sit again?” Why did you say again? You haven’t been told before. You inwardly cringe at yourself.

“Oh, right,” She points to the second column closest to her. It’s on the first row, near the whiteboard. You sit down, and shove your backpack underneath the desk. The bell rings, and almost immediately a couple students walk in. One of them, a black haired human, smiles at you when she goes to sit down a couple desks away from you. The other, a purple blooded troll looks at you, sneers, and walks to his seat. Despite not knowing your blood caste, he scorns you for your anonymity. He was part of the whole reason you were keeping your stupid mutant blood hidden until you moulted anyway, the hemophobic asshole.

You glare at him in a small bout of defiance, before giving up when he didn’t even spare you a second glance. You can’t wait for him to be upfront and hemo-ist to you so you have an excuse to clobber his face. You go to turn back to the front, slouching in your seat. The rest on the class pile in, the number of humans heavily outweighing the number of trolls. You try not to feel self-conscious.

The bell – the late bell - rings again just as two humans walk into the classroom. The first you recognise to be Rose, and you give her a small smile of relief because, well, finally, someone you recognise. The second sliding past her actually looks a lot like Rose: dark skin, fair hair. Except, well, the fact he’s a male. You wonder if the two hang out often, or if they’re related. Rose smiles back at you as she goes to sit near the back, next to one of the few trolls. The boy, however, comes to sit next to you.

“Hey, troll dude. Karkat. Whatever.” He murmurs next to you, more talking at you than to you. He begins to unapologetically stare at you through his dumb sunglasses. You turn to him with an arched eyebrow.

“How do you know my name? Did Rose tell you?” You whisper back to him, despite the rest of the class’s loud chattering. You assume Rose because of her not-so-subtle secretive door opening. The guy looks at you as if you were crazy, and you watch as his eyebrows shoot up beyond his glasses. All you did was talk to him, damn.

“What the fuck,” He’s speaking at a normal volume now, if not quite loud. Nobody even spares him a second glance, almost as if he wasn’t even there. You don’t realise he stands up, in fact he disappears for a second before returning with a slight blur to him. He glides across the classroom almost seamlessly, crouching down beside Rose.

“Right, everybody, settle down now,” The teacher called out from her desk, settling the class almost immediately with her powerful voice. You reluctantly turn forwards, the voice of the boy still ringing quite loudly throughout the classroom. What the hell? Why doesn’t the teacher just shut him up?

A thought strikes you, and you instantaneously ban it from you mind while simultaneously thinking about it more: “ _Can I see ghosts?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter was a little short, i'm awful at deadlines and i thought it would be a decent way to end ig. btw writing daves proper-proper introduction was a little hard and i may revise it later  
> btw the perfect song to write to is sexy dvd

**Author's Note:**

> so, thats chapter one! also the hc that trolls eat bugs b/c it's physically impossible to make that stuff on earth is 1) my idea i think, and 2) took like. half an hour of bug research and now i want to eat crickets


End file.
